Network monitoring devices, such as monitoring probes, have been proposed to measure performance of traffic flows in Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. Due to the large amount of data packets in traffic flows and the high speeds of traffic flows, it is difficult for conventional network monitoring devices to identify user specific tunnels. Another difficulty is that users may move around in LTE networks and it may be difficult to track user specific tunnels after users move from coverage of one base station (NodeB) to another since some fields or parameters in control plane signalling/message sent by NodeBs may be the same.
There is therefore a need for solutions to enable network monitoring systems to track user specific tunnels in Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Terrestrial Radio Access Network/GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (UTRAN/GERAN) connected to a LTE network.